NAKHICHEVAN, or Nakhjevan, a city of Russian Armenia, the chief town of a circle in the government of Erivan, is situated in 39° 12' N. lat. and 45° 25' E. long., 100 miles south-east of Erivan and 267 miles from Tiflis. It occupies the brow of one of the last spurs of the Karabakh Mountains (Anti-Caucasus), 3015 feet above the sea, and looks out over the wide and beautiful valley of the Araxes. Built and rebuilt again and again, Nakhichevan is full of half-obliterated evidence of former periods of prosperity. The present houses have for the most part been quarried from ancient ruins; of the palace of the Atabeks of Azerbijan there still remains a gateway with a Persian inscription, flanked by two brick towers; and at a little distance stands the so-called Tower of the Khans, a richly decorated twelve-sided structure about 102 feet in circumference and 75 feet in height, dating, to judge by the marvellously executed inscription which runs round the cornice, from the 12th century. There are also ruins of a large mosque. Situated on the highroad to Tabriz and Teheran, Nakhichevan is the seat of a considerable transit trade. In the Persian period the city is said to have had 40,000 inhabitants; in 1863 there were only 6251, and in 1873 6877 (2157 Armenians, 4697 Tartars). At the latter date there were 1200 houses, one Russian Greek church, three Armenian churches, four mosques, and two caravanserais....

NAKHICHEVAN-ON-THE-DON, a town of southern Russia, situated in the government of Ekaterinoslaff, district of Rostoff, 6 miles by rail to the north-east of the latter town, on the right bank of the Don. It was founded in 1780 by Armenians who emigrated from the Crimea and were allowed to settle on the banks of the Don, forming there an independent district between Azoff and the fort of St Demetrius, now Rostoff; they gave to the chief town of their new settlement the name of the older city in Caucasus. Owing to the fertility of the region, its advantageous situation for trade, and the privileges granted to the settlers, Nakhichevan soon became a wealthy place, and it still is the administrative centre of the “Armenian district,” which extends as a narrow strip along the banks of the Don, with a population of upwards of 25,000, of whom 16,500—principally Armenians, with some 2000 Russians—are settled at Nakhichevan. The town has several tobacco and wadding factories, tallow-melting houses, soap-works, brick-works, and tanneries, with an aggregate annual production of about <£100,000. The chief occupation of the Armenians, however, is trade, which they carry on throughout southern Russia, while the less wealthy of them are renowned as innkeepers on the Caucasus. The rural population depend mainly on cattle-breeding, and to some extent also on fishing.